Fig 1: Illustrated abstract. Schematic depiction of proposed speculative mechanism (created with BioRender.com). ApoE is more abundant in tissues from PAA patients compared to non-dilated A. pop. or other vascular diseases (AAA and PAOD). Treatment of VSMCs with ApoE leads to decreased proliferation and increased expression of contractile markers such as MYOCD, TAGLN, SMTN and CNN1on RNA and protein levels. Overall, this study suggest that ApoE might be involved in contractile phenotype restoration of popliteal VSMCs and thus counteract aneurysm formation (in individual patients).